This is not the first disc to be devoted to the music of Robert Johnson often
described as Shakespeare’s Lutenist. You just need to go back to 1993 for
Anthony Rooley and friends who recorded a disc of Johnson’s Theatre Music.
It comprises songs and lute solos and is on Virgin classics (VC7 5931 2).

Johnson worked for Shakespeare’s company, ‘The King’s Men’ at The Globe probably
from c.1605 when he would have been in his early twenties. Later he worked
at Blackfriars and after the great poet’s death composed for Webster, Ben
Jonson and others. For them he produced incidental music and songs for masques.
It’s very difficult to know which of these pieces Shakespeare actually heard.
The Witches Dance might have been for a Macbeth performance but more
likely for a post-Shakespeare play; Nigel North, in his very interesting booklet
notes, suggests Ben Jonson’s ‘The Masque of Queens’. But for the great man’s
last plays, the Romances like ‘The Winter’s Tale’, much music was needed and
Robert Johnson would have been much in demand. Johnson was no hack arranger
of fill-ins. He could often, especially in his songs and here in the Pavans
and the Fantasie, be inspired.

Some readers might care to search out an article I wrote for the British Music
Society in a Newsletter, (No 71 September 1996) in which I tried to make a
case for Robert Johnson being part of an extraordinary dynasty of musicians
going back to another Robert Johnson from Scotland (c.1500-1560). The latter
came to London and his sons and grandsons continued the family tradition.
All of them were connected with the highest Royal Patronage.

Johnson’s 24 surviving lute works are all here. The include the very fine
Fantasie (his only example), which Julian Bream on his 1962 RCA LP
‘The Golden Age of English Lute Music’ attributed to John Johnson, Robert’s
father. Its style however may well be more Elizabethan than Jacobean. Other,
more serious pieces include the Four Pavans. Nigel North has rather
freely reconstructed the Fourth, a very melancholic piece, from the keyboard
original. The latter was set by Giles Farnaby and can be found in the Fitzwilliam
Virginal Book. North has recently recorded all of Dowland’s Lute Music and
superb CDs they are too. It’s quite clear that learning Dowland has helped
in an understanding of Johnson and indeed that Johnson must have known Dowland’s
Pavans and been inspired by them himself.

The disc contains several short and slightly frivolous dances. Johnson was
keen on the Almain and ten of them are recorded here. Again the Fitzwilliam
Virginal Book offers us versions of three of them. The first track begins
with The Prince’s Almain - the young and ill-fated prince Henry Prince
of Wales - probably the composer’s best known work. It’s in a sort of bright
D minor. Julian Bream began his above record with this piece. Nigel North
gives it a more delicate performance here. There are other dances like the
Satyre’s Dance and the Fairies’ Dance, and a piece called The
Noble Man. Each of these is from a masque, Ben Jonson’s ‘Oberon’ for example
and George Chapman’s ‘Masque of the Middle Temple’, all from the period 1611-14.

Nigel North plays a seven-course lute for the earliest pieces but later Johnson
wrote for the nine or ten-course instrument. The one North uses was made in
2005 but based on a Hans Frei original by Lars Jönsson. No matter which instrument
he uses, North can be relied upon to give the listener a blissful and lyrical
experience capturing the differing moods of piece with character and élan.

Gary HigginsonA blissful and lyrical experience capturing the differing moods of piece with character and élan.